


In the Bleak Midwinter

by deadlybride



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Obviously), Aftermath, Angst, Episode: s09e13 The Purge, Gen, M/M, Mild Injury, Season/Series 09, drunk!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wants to talk about what could have been.</p><p>(Can be seen as gen or slash; levels of Wincest depend entirely on your point of view.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Bleak Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to keep up with this writing thing. Watched "Captives" last night, and am clinging to that faint moment of hope when Sam hesitated by his bedroom door. This story can happen any time during the period between "The Purge" and "Captives," though I imagine it being the very next week.

 

There's really nothing to recommend about this cabin. Two in the morning on a still February night, and Sam's wearing undershirt, shirt, jacket, coat, and shivering like he's in his bare skin because apparently whoever built the damn thing didn't care about insulation in Michigan winters. He wishes—well. There's never been any point in wishing.

"You sure we can't build a fire, Sammy?" God. Dean thinks he's whispering.

Sam closes his eyes briefly. "Yes." He doesn't turn away from the watch he's keeping, carefully just behind the tattered curtain on the kitchen window. "You think you can keep it down?"

"Sorry, sorry," Dean says, and Christ, now he's slurring.

He can't blame Dean for this one, exactly. They'd had to research the lore on this one on the road, no Men of Letters library (and no prophet, anymore) to help them out. So, yeah, they'd run in a little half-cocked, and the empusa had been a lot faster than they'd thought, and Dean had been Dean and taken point like he always did, and now, well. Sam's watching the iced-over road in front of this shithole of an abandoned cabin by himself, because when it comes to it Dean and his wrenched knee and his cracked (broken?) ribs aren't going to be running out after the bitch, are they. He wishes she'd just show up. Empusae are supposed to lurk around half-forgotten roads, supposed to home in on lonely travelers, and just as soon as someone drifts down this road on their way back from the bars she should materialize. Sam fantasizes, briefly, about beating her to death with her own bronze leg. It'd be fitting comeuppance for what he's having to listen to right now.

"Hey, hey," Dean whispers, loudly. Of course, loudly. "Sammy."

Sam shifts his weight, shivers. Tries to ignore the shifting, and then the grunt of pain.

"Sam. Sam, Sam. Come on."

"Jesus Christ," Sam mutters. It's too cold outside even to snow, and so all there is to look at is the lonely white circle of light from the streetlamp, the iced-over crust on the road tire-trodden and grey.

"Man," Dean says. "You sacrifice all your ribs for a guy, and then he can't even talk to you? That's cold." There's a snort. "Yeah, it is cold."

"Maybe if you hadn't gone in headfirst you wouldn't have had to get thrown into that SUV," Sam whispers back, and he knows it sounds vicious.

There's another snort, and then another low rustle. "Throw you into an SUV," Dean says, but absently, like he's just responding out of habit.

Sam takes a long, slow breath. There hasn't been any movement on the road in two hours. He puts his shoulder against the window frame, and looks over.

Dean's still sitting leaned up against the stove where Sam left him. They'd had to get away from the empusa, but she comes and goes so fast that Sam hasn't dared leave the window long enough to wrap up Dean's ribs or properly splint his leg. Just his crappy luck that the cabin's bar had still been fully stocked from whatever former vacationer had last rented here. He'd rushed Dean down into a sitting position as gently as he could, and dumped an armful of bottles next to him with the request to just dull the pain a little, and run back out to make sure their tracks were covered. By the time he got back, well. Dean's been drinking in the major leagues for a long time, now.

He's got the single tatty blanket Sam could find tugged over one shoulder like a toga, the red plaid faded and dull in the faint light coming through the window. It's half tangled around his bad leg, and even now he's wincing a little, trying to shift into a more comfortable spot on the rough floorboards. The bottle of whiskey is already gone, discarded along with Dean's shotgun. While Sam watches, resigned, Dean brings the now half-empty bottle of rum up for a long gulp, and when he swallows there's not a wince, not a single indication that it's phasing him.

Sam turns back to the window; still no cars, still no crazy Michiganders walking in this weather, and so no empusa. All of which, of course, means no distraction from the shallow, hitching sound of Dean's breathing. His ribs had better not be really broken, Sam thinks, and then Dean's talking again, trying to whisper and really not succeeding.

"Hey, Sammy?"

Sam bites the inside of his cheek. "Yeah, Dean."

"You know what I was thinkin' about?"

He's definitely slurring now. "No idea," Sam says, quelling.

Dean doesn't notice, of course. "I was thinkin', it's February again."

Sam frowns. When he looks, Dean's got his good knee pulled up against his chest, hugging it with the arm holding the rum bottle. Even from here, even in the half-dark, Sam can see how flushed his face is, how his eyes are unfocused. Looking at Sam, but not seeing him. What else is new.

"Yeah, Dean, it's February. How much have you had, seriously?"

Dean waves a hand, drops his head back against the stove with a thump. "February again means—you know? It's like an anniversary. One year since." He stops, like that meant anything.

"Since what?"

There's a pause, long enough that he looks out the window again. It's hard to talk to Dean casually at the best of times, and now, when he's drunk enough that it's like he's forgotten— _forgotten_ , like somehow they're okay again, he can hardly bear it.

"You know, this whole stupid—we wouldn't even be like this if I hadn't screwed up, back then. Too bad Cas can't zap us back anymore, huh?"

Sam's whole body tenses, hands clenched and stomach tight. Maybe he hasn't forgotten. "What do you mean," he says, trying not to put too much interest in it. If this is the only apology he gets—

"I mean, last February. The first trial. The friggin' hellhound."

It's so not what he was expecting that he's thrown, and he turns and looks at Dean fully. He's got his eyes closed, tilting his head back and forth against the glass oven door like a slow, drunk metronome.

"Should've killed it myself, you know," Dean continues, after a few seconds. The words are coming out slowly, but not really deliberately. He sounds like he's thinking to himself, like he's almost forgotten that Sam's in the room. "Could've gotten to rip them a new one, for a change. Could've done that trial, like I wanted to. Shouldn't've let you, don't know why I did."

Sam can't remember seeing Dean this drunk in a long time. Maybe not since that time they'd hunted that Japanese spirit. They haven't eaten today, not since breakfast at that drive-through, and there Dean goes taking another gulp off the rum bottle. Sam wraps his arms around his chest, glances out the window (no movement).

"You got there second," he says, after a moment. Dean blinks, peers across the room at him through heavy eyelids. "With the hellhound. It was on me, so I got it. It's not like I planned it that way."

Dean lets the rum bottle drop to the floorboards, grinds the glass slowly into the wood. "Yeah." He runs his tongue over his lower lip, scrapes the wet off with his teeth. "Should've been me, though."

"Why?"

Dean blinks again at his tone, looks confused. Sam takes a deep breath, tries to calm down. "Told you, Sammy," Dean says, in that slow, thick voice. "Wanted to do the trials for us, you know? Could've gone down swinging, and you'd've been fine. Finer," he amends, with a poorly executed wink.

There's a surge of bitterness in his stomach. He remembers, now. Dean's speech in that house, pretending like he wasn't still just waiting for death, that little flourish about his 'perfect ending.' Right.

"So, what?" Sam says. He refuses to budge from his spot by the window, but he really wants to get up in Dean's face, haul him to his feet and make him look Sam in the eye. "You do the trials, you go to hell and you cure Crowley, and then what? You're dead, and the gates of hell are shut, and everything's fine?"

Dean's head has sagged a little during his speech, like it's too heavy for his neck, but he manages to pick it up again. "Yeah," he says, with a little shrug that immediately makes him flinch and put a hand to his ribs.

Sam hears a stitch pop, realizes he's fisted his hands in his jacket so tight his fingers are aching. "So, it's okay for you to be dead and me to have to go on living, but not the other way around, huh." Dean frowns, uncomprehending. "You're a damn hypocrite, you know that?"

"What?" Dean honestly looks confused, like Sam's anger is the last thing he expected. Where the hell has he been, Sam thinks, bitter humor welling up. "Sammy," Dean says, shaking his head, "you said, you said it just the other day, you'd be okay."

"What?" Sam says, in his turn.

Dean's still holding that hand to his ribs, staring across at Sam. "If it were me, you said. I could go, and you wouldn't stop me. That you wouldn't—so, so you'd be okay."

Sam's about to retort, but stops, lips barely parted over a shaky breath. Dean's eyes are glazed, but now they look wet, not just—

"So I'd be dead, I mean, that's okay," Dean continues, tongue still shaping the words slurry and stumbling, but he just keeps going. "And you'd—you'd go on, maybe living in the bunker, with—with Kevin, and Cas could've stayed, wouldn't have made him run away. You guys woulda been fine."

He finally stops, looks down at the bottle of rum. It's a few seconds of quiet, and Sam forces himself to look away, blinks hard at the snowed-out road outside. It's so Dean, so goddamn Dean all over, talking about him dying like it'd be easier, like everyone would be better off if he just weren't—and Sam would be pissed at the same old self-sacrificing bullshit, he'd be giving in to the very real desire he's currently feeling to punch him in his idiot face, but. He's too drunk to be trying manipulation. This is honesty. He closes his eyes and flashes right back to that warm hallway, that ridiculous house, Dean wanting him _old and bald_ , smiling a little when he talks about a picture without him in it.

"Sammy?" Dean says, and his voice is even thicker.

"Yeah."

"I think these ribs might really be broken," and he says it like he's trying for casual, like if Sam tells him _good, I hope it hurts_ , he'll just laugh it off and keep sitting there in this horrible ice-cold cabin with more liquor in his veins than blood, keep waiting until dawn breaks pitilessly over the dark, far-off trees.

Sam swallows, wipes his hand down over his face. The empusa isn't coming back out tonight. "Yeah," he says again, and goes over to start the process of standing Dean up. It takes them a minute, because Dean's shaking, all his limbs quivering with the muscles gone hard and tense. Sam finally just wraps the blanket around both his shoulders and hauls him up bodily, taking his weight when his knee buckles and he nearly collapses back to the floor again. He makes a low, awful sound, face pressed up against Sam's chest and breath coming hot and labored through Sam's shirt, warming his skin. Sam wraps an arm around his shoulders, just for a second, before he forces him back to stand on his one good foot.

"Hey," Sam says. He bites the inside of his cheek again, keeps a steadying hand on Dean's shoulder. "Hey, you listening?"

Dean groans. His eyes are closed, and he's swaying, but he isn't passing out. It'll have to do.

"Last year," Sam says. "You remember what I said?"

A moment, and then Dean blinks his eyes open. This close, they're wet, eyelashes damp and spiky when Dean looks up at him. His eyes are grey in this light, no hint of green. Sam can't wait to get out of this cabin, can't wait to not be having this conversation, but on the off-chance Dean remembers tonight, he should remember this. He swallows around the awkwardness.

"I was gonna do the trials, even if it killed me. Because I wanted you to live, too. Still do. No matter how pissed I am. You get that?"

Dean shakes his head, sways hard. He wraps a hand into Sam's jacket to steady himself, just as Sam gets both his arms in a solid grip. If they moved a little, they could almost be hugging. "Sam?" Dean says.

He sounds half-asleep. For a few seconds, Sam wants to keep talking. Wants to keep Dean trapped between his two arms when he's like this, pliant and bewildered, and make him understand how much Sam _hurts_ , make him understand just what it meant to have another angel inside him. Wants to talk and talk, until he's hoarse and probably crying, until he can see the understanding light up Dean's face. Right now, though, Dean's trembling, barely standing under the triple onslaught of booze and cold and pain, and there's no point.

"Car's out back," he says, instead. Dean nods, dumbly, and slumps against him when he starts to maneuver them toward the back door, clutches the blanket around himself like a little kid.

Maybe it won't be tonight, or tomorrow, or next week. Maybe it'll be a month or more before he'll be able to force himself to have that conversation, before Dean will be willing to hear it. Sam gets Dean piled into the backseat, his leg stretched out as far as he can get it, and slams the Impala's door to the tune of that old creak Dean refuses to oil out. For a few seconds, he stands with his hands spread out on the cold steel roof, watches his breath purl out white on the frigid air.

Dawn's a long way off. He finds the keys in his pocket, wraps his fingers around them tightly enough that they bite into his palm, into that old, useless scar. He slides behind the wheel and looks at Dean in the rearview mirror, slumped against the window, just enough of his face showing to see that it's still tight with pain even when he's sleeping. After a few seconds, he unclenches his hand, slow and deliberate, and puts the key in the ignition. They're going to make it, he thinks, and listens as the Impala rumbles to life under his hands. Behind him, Dean sighs. Sam nods, and drives on, into the night.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I want to make it clear that I don't take sides in this one. Tumblr's all aflame with people screaming about how Dean was evil and how Sam's being too harsh, and--well. How tiring. I understand both the boys' plight, here. I just want them to talk again.


End file.
